Record-breaking ‘The Master’ opens in S.A. Friday

“The Cold Light of Day,” the political thriller starring Henry (The Next Superman) Cavill and Bruce Willis that the studio unceremoniously dumped into theaters Labor Day weekend, earned a pathetic $847,366 on 1,511 screens last week.

“The Master,” the acclaimed new film starring Philip Seymour Hoffman as a ’50s cult leader and Joaquin Phoenix as a troubled World War II vet who drifts into his orbit, earned almost as much ($736,311) as “Cold Light.” You know how many screens it played on?

Five. Three in New York, two in L.A.

Putting it in terms of butts in seats instead of boring numbers, “The Master” sold out every screening, while “Cold Light” played to almost empty auditoriums.

“The Master’s” per-screen take of $147, 262 broke the record set just months ago by the summer’s indie hit, “Moonrise Kingdom,” which raked in $130,749.

“We knew we would do a lot of business but we didn’t think it would be this big,” said Erik Lomis, president of theatrical distribution for the film’s distributor, the Weinstein Co., in an Associated Press interview. ”We knew from not only the pop-up screenings and the guerrilla marketing PTA (director Paul Thomas Anderson) does but also from the Venice Film Festival and the Toronto (International) Film Festival that we had something special. But you can never expect these kinds of numbers — it blew the doors off the theaters.”

We’ll find out whether it will continue to blow doors off theaters starting Friday, when “The Master” expands from five to 600 screens, including several in San Antonio – the Bijou, Alamo Drafthouse Park North, Embassy, the newly reopened Huebner Oaks and the Palladium.

Part of the attraction, according to AP’s Christy Lemire, was the rare opportunity to see the film in lush 70mm projection on four of the five screens. The last mainstream 70mm film was Ron Howard’s “Far and Away” back in 1992. That’s an option not available in most cities.

And yes, there’s the Scientology connection. Anderson has said that Hoffman’s character was inspired by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, although critics have said that the film itself doesn’t make that connection explicitly.

Speaking of critics, “The Master” has a Tomatometer score of 86 based on 78 reviews. That seems a little low, actually, for a film that sold out every seat last weekend.

That score could go a little lower when the next batch of reviews is tabulated. On the negative side is the San Francisco Chronicle’s Mick LaSalle, whose two-star review will appear in tomorrow’s Weekender and on mySA.com. His main complaint is that the movie wastes good performances by Hoffman and Phoenix thanks to a narrative that goes dead in the second half. Since Anderson wrote it, he suggests the director should have fired the screenwriter.

Roger Ebert, whose review should be up by tomorrow on rogerebert.com, seems equally conflicted. Calling it “fabulously well-acted and crafted,” he adds, “but when I reach for it, my hand closes on air.”

He gives it 2 1/2 stars, which, knowing RottenTomatoes.com, will probably be judged Fresh. But that’s another story …

Reports also indicate that that supposedly dead second half of the movie includes a scene with Hoffman singing with a bunch of naked women at a zany party. How boring could that be?

Amy Adams, who play’s Hoffman’s wife, didn’t sound like she was bored in this interview about the scene in question. Apparently, the women at the party aren’t really naked, but Phoenix’s character sees them that way.

“… Typically when we see women naked in our society, aside from in life, they’re acting like they know they’re naked,” Adams said. “But here the idea is that we’re all acting like we have clothes on … It was very bizarre.”

Imagine THAT scene in 70 mm … Maybe “The Master” will turn up in IMAX format some day.